Federal Trade Commissioner Orson Swindle, 67, chats about his agency"s popular Do-Not-Call list and the proposed Do-Not-Spam list. A former Marine aviator, Swindle spent more than six years in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp.
PC World: Isn"t the FTC"s Do-Not-Call telemarketing list one of the most popular citizen-participation programs ever?
Orson Swindle: Certainly since I"ve been here. It"s made real heroes out of us. We see people with T-shirts on, saying, "I like Do-Not-Call." In fact, one of our employees jogging one day had an FTC T-shirt on, and somebody stopped and said, "Thank you for Do-Not-Call."
PCW: And now the FTC is considering a Do-Not-Spam registry?
Swindle: A part of [the federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003] directs the FTC to take a very serious look at the possibility of a Do-Not-Spam list similar to the Do-Not-Call list. We are in the process of going through that right now. We expect to hear from an awful lot of people, and probably some spammers, too. We have a big task before usa?|to come up with a report to Congress by mid-June as to what might be done and whether or not it"s feasible.